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Guns
Good weapons are essential if you want to live to fight another day. Gun Types Machine Guns - All of the machine guns in the game are rotary chain guns, as demonstrated by the images and the extreme rate of fire. These weapons spew countless rounds in long bursts. Their low accuracy means the rounds spread out quickly, making their effective range far lower than the range listed. Only some of the rounds fired have tracers, but the game does calculate hits and misses for each round fired. When starting out, pilots with poor Gunnery skills may find themselves unable to overcome enemy shield regeneration with this weapon type, especially with the early models. Later, with high gunnery skills and a high speed fighter to stay within range, the heavy machine guns can be very effective. In general there are always better options than the light machine guns, but the Rolf might be worth trying. Autocannons - Ironically, the autocannons in the game are light weapons rather than heavy. The difference between (Light) Machine Guns and Autocannons in the game is that they do more damage per round and they fire shorter bursts. The main benefit is that they have more range, but this is only useful if your pilot has high gunnery skill. The improved accuracy of the more advanced autocannons is another major consideration. Autocannon rounds have slightly longer travel times than machine guns, but they're still quick. Blaster - The Alien Gun is the only weapon listed as being of the "Blaster" type in the game. Functionally it behaves like an autocannon. Cannons - Cannons are another kinetic weapon. This type fires single shells rather than being rapid-fire like the machine guns, and it's effective over a much longer range. In Star Wolves 3, the first three cannon models fire 2-shot bursts, while the most expensive model is double-barreled and fires two shots simultaneously. In Star Wolves 1 and 2, the first model fires a single shot at a time, while the second model fires in 3-shot bursts, with the pause between each burst the same length of time as the pause between each shot on the first model. As you might expect, gunnery skill determines how well the pilot leads his or her target with these weapons. While enemies are able to dodge a lot of incoming fire from cannons, the shots that hit will do damage. Thus, they tend to be a good choice early on when gunnery skills are low. In Star Wolves 3, the 4th generation cannon is good enough to enable cannons to remain a viable weapon throughout the game. Plasma - High damage, but slow firing and very slow traveling describes plasma weapons. They also suffer from lower range than some other weapon types. They're only useful against fighters in the hands of a pilot with excellent gunnery skills. However, they can be devastating against enemy capital ships, which cannot dodge the deadly plasma. Lasers - Lasers are single-shot weapons that do not have travel times. When they fire, they hit or miss instantly, making dodging impossible. They do good damage but have a low rate of fire. In addition, they have excellent range. This makes them excellent sniper weapons, especially with pilots who have skills that improve critical hits. Pulse Lasers - These are lasers that have been designed to fire in bursts. For example, the M-805 Shining has a listed rate of fire three times higher than the M-79 Scorcher. That rate of fire doesn't tell the whole story. The pause between firings isn't any shorter than the Scorcher, but it fires three shots each time. Thus, pulse lasers have higher damage per second. On the downside, they have less range. Each shot can hit or miss, so a fighter that might be destroyed by a single hit from a regular laser might survive if one of the three shots from a pulse laser burst don't hit. Particle Accelerators - Particle weapons have a different name and different graphics, but functionally they're just like lasers, with slightly less range. Presumably, anti-laser defense systems don't protect against particle accelerators (untested). However, particle accelerators don't benefit from the Laser Proficiency perk. Gun List All of the weapons from Star Wolves 1 and 2 are in Star Wolves 3, as well as new "4th Generation" weaponry. A couple of the weapons change names between the games, but they have the same stats. The ROF column shows the unknown time measurement listed in the game (higher is faster), then in the parenthesis, we break it down further for weapons that fire in bursts. The first number is the pause between bursts, and the second number is the number of projectiles fired in each burst. This is more useful to know for the cannons and pulse lasers than it is for the machine guns. So, for example, a Bardiche fires two shot bursts, with each shot doing 20 damage, resulting in 40 damage if both shots hit. Light Light weapons can only be mounted on fighters with Light weapon slots. All of them except for the Beserk Lasers fire numerous rounds in large bursts. The Berserk Lasers fire numerous shots simultaneously, making them function like a laser shotgun. Heavy Heavy weapons can be mounted on fighters with Heavy weapon slots. Turreted versions are also available, but can only be used on ships. Turreted versions have +5 Range, but are otherwise identical. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, there is no Halberd turret. The Yataghan and Espadon are special cases in that they have two barrels that each fire a two-shot burst, for a total of four projectiles per ROF period. Ship Turrets Turret weapons can only be mounted in Turret slots on the mothership. NPC ships like the Butcher have a turret along with fighter-class heavy weapons. The Espadon is listed here because it only exists in turret form. Major Major-Caliber weapons are capital ship-only weapons that can only be mounted in Major-Caliber weapon slots. They are fixed-mount weapons with an extremely narrow cone of fire.